It is with a feeling of strangeness that one views a number of El Greco’s portraits such as is gathered in the Prado. Almost invariably the eyes are fixed on us, but with no look of recognition or sympathy. Though the face thrills with life, it is impassive. Behind each living mask is an impenetrable mind, wrapped completely in the seclusion of its own spirit. Equally removed from all outside sympathies are the faces of the apostles and saints. They, however, are not impassive, for on each is the trace of inward struggle, of highly wrought meditation or spiritual ecstasy. Their personalities are so varied and distinct that one is assured they are portraits or at least studies of the types of ecclesiastics, monks or laymen which Toledo presented. They have one quality in common, that of transcendental elevation; symptomatic of the spiritual unrest of the time. For elsewhere the Protestant Reformation was making headway and Spain was its most ardent opponent. It was here that the Counter-Reformation reached its most extravagant form. The Spaniard met the challenge of reason with a passionate belief, which developed into mysticism and visionary exaltation. Of this Toledo was the volcanic center and El Greco its pictorial exponent. The mainspring of his motive was his own intense religious belief, which enabled him to give plastic reality to the visions of his passionately exalted imagination.
His pictures, when he has adjusted his style to his motive, are all visions. Even his portraits are visions of men’s souls. And the secret of his power to suggest the reality of the vision is that it is based on realism. His creations are a union of realism and idealism; or rather of realism in the true sense. For to-day we have learnt to distinguish between realism and naturalism:
the latter a representation of natural phenomena; realism a representation of the same with a suggestion of their relation to the horizon of the idea involved in them. This becomes El Greco’s almost invariable habit. Turn, for example, to the _San Mauricio_ (p. 75), which was executed shortly after the _Assumption of the Virgin_. According to legend Mauritius was the general of a Theban mercenary legion in the Roman army. He refused to pay homage to the gods and was condemned to be beheaded. Whereupon the whole legion declared their faith and shared martyrdom with their leader. One may believe that El Greco pictured the event in his imagination; its several phases, the general’s refusal, the executions and the glory in Heaven of the martyr’s crown. In the glow of religious fervor a vision shaped itself before the eyes of his spirit and he set it upon the canvas. The noble heads of the general and his lieutenants are clearly portraits of contemporaries, of men who no doubt believed themselves capable of imitating the example of the saint, if occasion required it. At the outset, therefore, the picture is based, not on a mere representation of certain persons, but of the latter in their relation to the idea involved. In the gravity and confidence of the saint’s face are mirrored alike the consciousness of the tragedy to be depicted and the glory that will follow. The saint himself, in fact, is represented as having his own vision of the situation in relation to its horizon of ideas.
